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| The is the translator's note, using Objective Justification and Subjective Justification (neither term is found in the Bible, but the terms have been watered, fertilized, and tended by the LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC). Note well - Woods was a Calvinist. His English translation was a major work in American Evangelical circles for 90 years and is still in print. |
The Email
Dear Pastor Jackson,
I read part of the Knapp text to see if he promoted OJ. I cannot find it. Even the Woods note doesn't support UOJ as it is today. Perhaps it was just the terms that were appropriated. Yet, even one commentator has said that SJ is every bit as objective as OJ, showing the terms to be highly inappropriate.
I still struggle with the term "reconcile" to understand its meaning. It is so easily equated to atonement, yet the confessions use it in the sense of justification repeatedly. I thought Lenski might be right in describing an objective reconciliation and a subjective one, but now I am entertaining the notion that he is wrong, and reconciliation is always justification.
Blessings,
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GJ - I have the book in English, discovered and sent by Bruce Christian, D.D. The wording in the graphic is verbatim from my copy.
Some points to remember: The original book was in German, the lectures of one of the last Pietists at Halle University. The university rapidly became rationalistic after its founding. The book was translated into English by one of the best known leaders of Protestantism at the time, Leonard Woods, a Calvinist, which naturally helped its status. The English version was already in print before the syphilitic bishop (Martin Stephan) and his cult landed in New Orleans. According to a WELS essay, Walther loved the terms, which had been picked up and used in Germany. Walter taught, as he was guided by Stephan, that when Christ rose from the dead, the entire world was absolved of sin. Walther taught this his entire career in America.
The Objective Justification term has also been presented as General Justification (the German meaning universal - each and every one), and The Justification of the Sinner (Edward Preuss), the name and content of his booklet as ambiguous as his life.
I see two sources for Objective Justification. One is Calvinism, which does not recognize the efficacy of the Word. The other is Pietism, which is anti-confessional and so easily molded in various ways. Some teach that Christ absolved the world when He died on the cross. Others emphasize the Rambach/Halle version that the world was absolved of all sin when Christ rose from the dead - abusing 1 Timothy 3:16.
This really comes down to using the Atonement as Justification, and I know one ELS pastor (Brockdorf) who is very persistent about this being true. They are not the same Biblical terms, as recognized by some of quotations provided by Robert Preus in Justification and Rome. Rolf Preus thinks we should dwell on all of his father's works, but not that one, Robert's last.
Lenski is hated by WELS for never allowing that people are forgiven without faith. However, he tried too hard in some places to reconcile OJ with Justification by Faith. A non-Biblical term cannot be harmonized with the Biblical term used so often and so clearly.
The Atonement - or the Reconciliation - is the Gospel, Isaiah 53, the Fifth Gospel.
I will be glad to add more later.
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| Fifty years of this claptrap would make any sect brain-dead. Imputing (counting) is used by Paul, echoing Genesis 15:6, as counting sins forgiven through faith in Christ. |
